Hang oneself

上吊吊 (shàng diào diào): death by hanging

Competition for the lamest excuse for a prison inmate's death. In first place is “drank boiled water,” in second place is “played hide and go seek,” and in third place is “hung himself with his own shoelace.”

This term comes from the suspicious explanation offered for the 2009 death of Yuan Zhongru while in police custody [zh]. Yuan's autopsy revealed a broken sternum, blood pooled in the chest cavity, and a ruptured heart and lungs. Despite the absence of visible abrasions on his neck, the police department declared that Yuan died after hanging himself. Netizens questioned how he could have found something to hang himself while in the interrogation room and wondered what he could have attached the cord to. Netizens blamed the death on police brutality and linked the case to a string of other high profile cases in which inmates died in prison under unusual circumstances. For more of the suspicious explanations offered by authorities for the deaths of inmates or those in custody, see “death from hide and go seek,” “death from suffocation by quilt,” “death from nightmare,” “death from being overly excited,” or “death by drinking boiled water”.